Worcester and Malvern Cyclists’ Touring Club
Switzerland and Back
Graham Coulson.
Graham Coulson.
The plan was to cycle camp across France to Switzerland and back with no defined end date, other than “about a month”. It happened that a CTC camping group would be in Burgundy and the edge of the Jura at a time that suited me well, so I could meet them and have company for a week or more.
Friday 4th June I took the day ferry from Portsmouth to Ouistreham (Caen) arriving about 3pm and rode to St Pierre sur Dives, 30 odd miles, to find the campsite was well and truly closed. Locked, barred, boarded up. So my first night was spent in a hotel; the only one in the whole trip.
Saturday took me to Ferte Vidame. The approaches to this small town are on a dead straight road whereby you can see the ruined chateau some considerable time before you get there. The campsite was absolutely magnificent, but the town itself was a real let down. A few bars along a main road and I had to search the backstreets for a small shop to buy food. Sunday morning it rained, with a vengeance. Heavy rain and thunder for about 4 hours. In my good old cape I was dry and comfortable enough though. I arrived at Toury and asked a passerby where the campsite was. Of course the only passerby on a Sunday afternoon in small town France happened to be Spanish and did not know. Eventually I found it, a small site of about 10 pitches with 6 of them occupied by itinerant workers. These people look like, but should not be confused with, our “travellers” which France also suffers from. In the afternoon I found a local time trial in the backstreets of the town and something like 7 km long with every crossing road barricaded and manned by marshals. There were 100 riders or more and the local car park was a mass of club cars covered with advertising and with racks and racks of bikes.
At 90 rolling miles Monday was a long day for me. Bear in mind this is on a trike with camping kit. Reaching my target town for the day, I decided to press on to make up time to meet the CTC group. About 3pm I got to St Fargeau where I knew the campsite was a few miles beyond the town and just followed the signs which took me a circuitous and very hilly route. I was stuffed by the time I arrived, partly because the weather had been hot and sultry, so pretty unpleasant.
Tuesday 8th I met the CTC group at L’Isle sur Serein after about 60 rolling miles in a morning with heavy showers. One little lane I followed was along a narrow valley which was superb in that I saw no motor vehicles, no houses and only one person in something over 5 miles. I arrived at the campsite in time to nip into town before the shops shut for lunch. On my way, there was a loud BANG and suddenly the front of my saddle was flapping in the breeze. The titanium saddle rails on my Brooks B17 had snapped just in front of the saddle, pillar clamp. Oh poo! I asked a local if there was a bike shop or anybody I could talk to. He said “there is a garage up the road”. I went there and explained my plight. The owner told me there was a bike shop in the nearby town of Avallon, about 10 miles away. However, while he was talking he had obviously been thinking because he wandered away for a few minutes and came back with a saddle. A brand new, low end Selle Italia foam covered plastic thing. I was extremely pleased to take it and thrust 20 Euros into his hand even though he asked for nothing. He even loaned me the 10mm spanner to fit it. This saddle lasted me the rest of the trip, another thousand miles and more.
I spent the next nine days with the CTC group, moving campsites every third day and meandering across Burgundy to the edge of the Jura. It was pretty wet so not the best for touring. We caught the northern edge of the severe weather that saw flash floods further south. Sunday in Burgundy, near Beaune, was amazing. Lots and lots of cyclists of all sorts following signed cycle routes on the tiny roads that criss-cross the vineyards.
I left the group on Friday 18th to ride up the Jura, ducking in and out of Switzerland, to Basle. The gorges of the Jura were fantastic. Steep sided, with a corresponding steep climb out the end of each one. Again, lots of rain. I reached Basle as planned on Sunday lunchtime, spent the afternoon wandering around town and then crossed back into France to the border town of St Louis where I lived in 1999. It is still the mucky little town I remember. There are lots of tram tracks in Basle which I can tell you are pretty unpleasant on a trike because you cannot usually ride alongside them and the width of the track is not a great deal bigger than a trike. I dropped a wheel into only one and had to stop to get out of it because I could not just lift the rear wheel while riding due to the camping load.
Striking north west, I headed towards the southern foothills of the Vosges where I camped at Masevaux for 2 nights so that I could do some climbing relatively lightly loaded. It was pretty cold here, down to 4 degrees C overnight and when I set off to go up Ballon des Vosges it was 7 degrees and I needed to pull arm warmers down over my hands to keep warm. I’d been over Grand Ballon 10 years ago and wanted to tick off Ballon because it is a much more winding climb and descent. I met an 86 year old who had just been over the climb on his heavily loaded recumbent trike. It had taken him 3 hours. As he said, “so what! I am enjoying myself”.
Heading further west I stayed in campsites in some pretty grim towns as well as some very pleasant ones. One I recall, Malesherbes which is a bit south east of Paris, was really unpleasant. The campsite was fine but the town had lots of housing estates and run down areas. The local youth, all seemingly of North African descent, filled the time driving around playing crap rap at full volume. A day or so before I reached here, my plans had suddenly changed. Being quite nearby, I had intended to go to the chateau at Fontainebleau, but unfortunately one of my front teeth gave way. I was tugging at a bit of stale baguette for breakfast when I felt something give. It was a tooth that had been crowned many years ago and had now failed ending up pointing forwards. I decided I could nurse it home rather than visit a French dentist and so be tied to a particular town while being treated, and hence I needed to plot a more direct course than I would have done otherwise.
By now I’d been on the road 3 weeks. The last few days of the ride were pretty hot and riding the exposed roads across corn fields south of Paris was unpleasant. It was a relief to return to the shade of rolling roads as I reached the last 100 miles or so to the coast. I got back to Ouistreham to catch the ferry on Wednesday 30th June. The price was a shock. It seems that the afternoon crossing is popular and so has higher prices – 80 Euros, almost twice the cost of my outbound ferry.
Summary – I went from Ouistreham heading roughly south east, passing south of Paris, through Burgundy towards Geneva, into the Jura where I struck north dropping in and out of Switzerland to Basle. Then north west through the southern edge of the Vosges before striking more to the west to pass south of Paris once more and back to Ouistreham. 1500 miles, 27 days, longest day 90 miles, shortest day 9 miles to the shops a couple of times. Total cost, ferries, food etc was £600. Campsites were generally about 7 Euros, but the cheapest was a remarkable 1.8 Euros. Burgundy I don’t wish to revisit because it was too picture postcard like and crawling with British. The Jura was fantastic. I spend most of my time on very minor back roads and so map reading is quite important. It got exciting a few times where the minor roads became very minor indeed, to the point of being farm tracks. One day in a very heavily forested area I became a little confused in an absolute maze of tiny lanes. I had to think “if I head east, keep the hill on my left and do not descend anywhere, then I should get somewhere useful”. Sure enough, I came out only about 5km from where I should have. A bit of excitement, but in the rain and nearing lunchtime I could have done without it. The saddle? I still have it. It was ok until the higher temperatures in my last week. Being used to a nice leather saddle that breathes a bit I found the plastic one very uncomfortable in the heat, leading to a nasty case of sweaty bits after about 40 miles each day. I met French, German and Dutch cyclists, sometimes alone but usually in couples. All of them were going further than me and over longer period than me. Most seemed to be out for about 2 months. These were not super cyclists or cycle tourists we think of in the UK, they were just people to whom 100km is a long way, but cycling is an everyday occurrence. Quite remarkable.
Friday 4th June I took the day ferry from Portsmouth to Ouistreham (Caen) arriving about 3pm and rode to St Pierre sur Dives, 30 odd miles, to find the campsite was well and truly closed. Locked, barred, boarded up. So my first night was spent in a hotel; the only one in the whole trip.
Saturday took me to Ferte Vidame. The approaches to this small town are on a dead straight road whereby you can see the ruined chateau some considerable time before you get there. The campsite was absolutely magnificent, but the town itself was a real let down. A few bars along a main road and I had to search the backstreets for a small shop to buy food. Sunday morning it rained, with a vengeance. Heavy rain and thunder for about 4 hours. In my good old cape I was dry and comfortable enough though. I arrived at Toury and asked a passerby where the campsite was. Of course the only passerby on a Sunday afternoon in small town France happened to be Spanish and did not know. Eventually I found it, a small site of about 10 pitches with 6 of them occupied by itinerant workers. These people look like, but should not be confused with, our “travellers” which France also suffers from. In the afternoon I found a local time trial in the backstreets of the town and something like 7 km long with every crossing road barricaded and manned by marshals. There were 100 riders or more and the local car park was a mass of club cars covered with advertising and with racks and racks of bikes.
At 90 rolling miles Monday was a long day for me. Bear in mind this is on a trike with camping kit. Reaching my target town for the day, I decided to press on to make up time to meet the CTC group. About 3pm I got to St Fargeau where I knew the campsite was a few miles beyond the town and just followed the signs which took me a circuitous and very hilly route. I was stuffed by the time I arrived, partly because the weather had been hot and sultry, so pretty unpleasant.
Tuesday 8th I met the CTC group at L’Isle sur Serein after about 60 rolling miles in a morning with heavy showers. One little lane I followed was along a narrow valley which was superb in that I saw no motor vehicles, no houses and only one person in something over 5 miles. I arrived at the campsite in time to nip into town before the shops shut for lunch. On my way, there was a loud BANG and suddenly the front of my saddle was flapping in the breeze. The titanium saddle rails on my Brooks B17 had snapped just in front of the saddle, pillar clamp. Oh poo! I asked a local if there was a bike shop or anybody I could talk to. He said “there is a garage up the road”. I went there and explained my plight. The owner told me there was a bike shop in the nearby town of Avallon, about 10 miles away. However, while he was talking he had obviously been thinking because he wandered away for a few minutes and came back with a saddle. A brand new, low end Selle Italia foam covered plastic thing. I was extremely pleased to take it and thrust 20 Euros into his hand even though he asked for nothing. He even loaned me the 10mm spanner to fit it. This saddle lasted me the rest of the trip, another thousand miles and more.
I spent the next nine days with the CTC group, moving campsites every third day and meandering across Burgundy to the edge of the Jura. It was pretty wet so not the best for touring. We caught the northern edge of the severe weather that saw flash floods further south. Sunday in Burgundy, near Beaune, was amazing. Lots and lots of cyclists of all sorts following signed cycle routes on the tiny roads that criss-cross the vineyards.
I left the group on Friday 18th to ride up the Jura, ducking in and out of Switzerland, to Basle. The gorges of the Jura were fantastic. Steep sided, with a corresponding steep climb out the end of each one. Again, lots of rain. I reached Basle as planned on Sunday lunchtime, spent the afternoon wandering around town and then crossed back into France to the border town of St Louis where I lived in 1999. It is still the mucky little town I remember. There are lots of tram tracks in Basle which I can tell you are pretty unpleasant on a trike because you cannot usually ride alongside them and the width of the track is not a great deal bigger than a trike. I dropped a wheel into only one and had to stop to get out of it because I could not just lift the rear wheel while riding due to the camping load.
Striking north west, I headed towards the southern foothills of the Vosges where I camped at Masevaux for 2 nights so that I could do some climbing relatively lightly loaded. It was pretty cold here, down to 4 degrees C overnight and when I set off to go up Ballon des Vosges it was 7 degrees and I needed to pull arm warmers down over my hands to keep warm. I’d been over Grand Ballon 10 years ago and wanted to tick off Ballon because it is a much more winding climb and descent. I met an 86 year old who had just been over the climb on his heavily loaded recumbent trike. It had taken him 3 hours. As he said, “so what! I am enjoying myself”.
Heading further west I stayed in campsites in some pretty grim towns as well as some very pleasant ones. One I recall, Malesherbes which is a bit south east of Paris, was really unpleasant. The campsite was fine but the town had lots of housing estates and run down areas. The local youth, all seemingly of North African descent, filled the time driving around playing crap rap at full volume. A day or so before I reached here, my plans had suddenly changed. Being quite nearby, I had intended to go to the chateau at Fontainebleau, but unfortunately one of my front teeth gave way. I was tugging at a bit of stale baguette for breakfast when I felt something give. It was a tooth that had been crowned many years ago and had now failed ending up pointing forwards. I decided I could nurse it home rather than visit a French dentist and so be tied to a particular town while being treated, and hence I needed to plot a more direct course than I would have done otherwise.
By now I’d been on the road 3 weeks. The last few days of the ride were pretty hot and riding the exposed roads across corn fields south of Paris was unpleasant. It was a relief to return to the shade of rolling roads as I reached the last 100 miles or so to the coast. I got back to Ouistreham to catch the ferry on Wednesday 30th June. The price was a shock. It seems that the afternoon crossing is popular and so has higher prices – 80 Euros, almost twice the cost of my outbound ferry.
Summary – I went from Ouistreham heading roughly south east, passing south of Paris, through Burgundy towards Geneva, into the Jura where I struck north dropping in and out of Switzerland to Basle. Then north west through the southern edge of the Vosges before striking more to the west to pass south of Paris once more and back to Ouistreham. 1500 miles, 27 days, longest day 90 miles, shortest day 9 miles to the shops a couple of times. Total cost, ferries, food etc was £600. Campsites were generally about 7 Euros, but the cheapest was a remarkable 1.8 Euros. Burgundy I don’t wish to revisit because it was too picture postcard like and crawling with British. The Jura was fantastic. I spend most of my time on very minor back roads and so map reading is quite important. It got exciting a few times where the minor roads became very minor indeed, to the point of being farm tracks. One day in a very heavily forested area I became a little confused in an absolute maze of tiny lanes. I had to think “if I head east, keep the hill on my left and do not descend anywhere, then I should get somewhere useful”. Sure enough, I came out only about 5km from where I should have. A bit of excitement, but in the rain and nearing lunchtime I could have done without it. The saddle? I still have it. It was ok until the higher temperatures in my last week. Being used to a nice leather saddle that breathes a bit I found the plastic one very uncomfortable in the heat, leading to a nasty case of sweaty bits after about 40 miles each day. I met French, German and Dutch cyclists, sometimes alone but usually in couples. All of them were going further than me and over longer period than me. Most seemed to be out for about 2 months. These were not super cyclists or cycle tourists we think of in the UK, they were just people to whom 100km is a long way, but cycling is an everyday occurrence. Quite remarkable.
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